Goodnight Moon
by AZBella07
Summary: Alice Brandon is down on her luck and living back in Forks much to her dismay. She takes a part-time job for Charlie Swan, hoping to find something better fast! Little does she know that this part-time job is much more than she's bargained for!


**_A/N: I do not own Twilight or any of its characters. No copyright infringement is intended.  
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**_Thanks to Project Team Beta for helping me polish this chapter up.  
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_**This is not a new story, just being republished and continued past Chapter 6! Hope you enjoy and review :-)**  
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_Chapter One_

_I say my hell is the closet I'm stuck inside._

_- Dave Matthews Band_

Let's take a look at my situation, shall we?

No job, no car, no money. I still had an apartment, but only because by some grace of God, my parents decided to help me pay my rent while I got back on my feet. I suspected the only reason was that they didn't want to turn their exercise room back into my bedroom.

I was laying on my bed, facing the ceiling, trying to figure out what else I could sell so I could buy groceries when the phone rang. I looked at the display screen; it was Janet, my mother.

"Hello," I groaned.

"Alice, it's your mother," Janet said. Like I didn't already know that.

"I know. What's up?"

"Are you coming over for dinner?"

"How would I get there?" I asked, exasperated with her assumption that I could be at her beck and call.

"Your father will pick you up on his way home from work. Be ready at five-thirty. I'll see you then." I heard the dial tone sound before I could protest.

Another family dinner and I was sure Rosalie wouldn't be there. Why would she be? She was married with kids. She wasn't the family screw up.

I looked at the alarm clock. It was only three. I had two hours before I had to get ready. I decided to take a nap to mentally prepare myself for my ordeal. A wise person would have used this time to scour the want ads and internet job sites for potential employment, but I had been doing that for weeks. I'd had enough of dead ends.

At five my alarm went off, and I got up and got ready. At 5:32P I heard the blare of a car horn, indicating that my dad was waiting. I had three seconds before the horn would blare again. I ran down the stairs and hopped into my father's Ford Taurus.

"Hi, Daddy," I said cheerily while leaning over to kiss his cheek.

"Hi, Alice. How are you? Any leads on a job?" he asked immediately. One thing you have to know about my dad is that he doesn't give up. Ever. He doesn't want to pay my rent forever, and he doesn't want me back in his house, so he will ask me daily about my employment situation.

"Nothing yet, Dad. But I'm working on it. I promise."

"Those pillow marks on the side of your face really show me how hard you were working on it today." He chuckled.

He thinks he's hysterical sometimes. I tried rubbing the sleep marks out of my face; my mother wouldn't understand my nap this afternoon.

When we got to the house, I sighed and trudged up the steps to the front door. My mother opened it before I could even knock.

"Go set the table; dinner is almost ready," she demanded.

Let the fun begin.

Once the table was set and dishes were served, we sat down to eat the fried chicken and potatoes. I had five minutes of an enjoyable meal before the questions and comments started.

"Have you found a job yet?" my mother asked.

"No," I answered before taking a bite of my chicken.

"I was talking to Renee today." Renee was my mom's cousin; her husband was Charlie Swan, retired chief of police in our tiny little town of Forks, WA. He now had his own private eye business. For what, I never understood; it's not like anything ever happens in Forks. I could already see where this was going.

"Okay…" I responded.

"She said Charlie is looking for a girl to file at his office. You should go talk to him. You'd be working with your cousin Bella. She answers the phones for him."

"Thanks, but no thanks," I replied.

The last thing I wanted to do was file paperwork for Charlie Swan. He was nice, but I couldn't imagine I would be kept busy enough to avoid conversation. Not that I didn't like them; they were just strange. They kept to themselves, and Bella was a social recluse. We went to high school together, and she never hung out with anyone except for her bad-boy boyfriend, Edward Cullen. I heard he was a cop now. I wondered if that's why Charlie retired. Maybe he couldn't deal with working alongside the kid he had to haul away more than once.

Sheesh, what a town!

"Why not? It's a job and you need a job. You should go talk to him tomorrow. We can't pay your rent forever, you know."

"I know. I'll go talk to him tomorrow. No promises though!" I scooped up the last spoonful of potatoes and shoved them in my mouth. "Any dessert?"

"I made apple pie. I know how much you love it."

"Mom, you are the best." I smiled at her. My dad cleared his throat loudly. "Of course you are too, Dad. You are the money maker of the family after all."


End file.
